A teenage high school student killed nine people, including his grandfather, and wounded more than a dozen others before turning the gun on himself in a shooting spree on the Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota on Monday.

The tragedy took place at a home on the reservation and at the Red Lake High School. It was the deadliest incident of school-related violence since the shooting in Columbine, Colorado, that left 15 dead and 23 wounded in 1999.

At around 2pm, the student killed his grandfather, a veteran tribal law enforcement officer identified as Daryl Lussier, 58, and his grandfather's girlfriend at their home on the reservation.

The student then took his grandfather's cruiser to the high school at around 3pm and rammed it into the building, according to news reports. He opened fire there, first killing a security officer identified as Derrick Brun, 28, and a teacher identified as Neva Rogers, 62.

He proceeded to kill a female teacher and five students, an FBI special agent said in a press conference last night. [MP3: 1.81MB]
The school was evacuated and the surviving victims were sent for treatment at area hospitals.

THE STUDENT
News reports identified the shooter as Jeff Weise, a sophomore at Red Lake High School, but conflicted on his age. Most reports said he was 15 while others said he was 17.

Students and other described Weise as a loner and "Goth kid" who always wore a dark trench coat to school. "He's anti-social," one student told The St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The paper also uncovered information about Weise's apparent obsession with Nazis and Adolph Hitler. He used the names "NativeNazi" and Todesengel on neo-Nazi message board. In one
July 19, 2004 post, he said both his parents were Native American "though from what I understand I also have a little German, a little Irish, and a little French Canadian in my blood as well."

In a
June 3, 2004 post, he joked with another poster who used the word "Injun" in another post. "You mean 'Enjun'? Get your racial slurrs right, lol," he wrote.

Internet-cached versions of the forums at nazi.org also indicate he posted in a special area for "Native American For Nationalists from 'Native American'/'Indian' tribes." The site has since undergone a redesign and NativeNazi's original posts cannot be accessed at this time.

THE TRIBE
Red Lake Nation Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr. held a press conference last night on "one of the darkest and most painful occurrences in the history of our tribe."

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims," he said. I can assure the Red Lake tribal members that the situation is under control and secure. Several organizations and agencies have offered assistance in our time of need and the Red Lake Nation has graciously accepted."

Jourdain was offered support by Interior associate deputy secretary Jim Cason and Bureau of Indian Affairs director Patrick Ragsdale during a call yesterday, a BIA spokesperson said. The BIA is sending a team of uniformed officers, peer counselors and other employees to the reservation, 240 miles north of the Twin Cities.

The tribe is self-governing and operates its own police force independent of the BIA. There is no BIA agency nearby. The tribe owns 100 percent of the 825,654-acre reservation.

The reservation, closed to outsiders, is home to about 5,100 people, the overwhelming majority of whom are Indian. Nearly 40 percent of families live below the poverty line.

The Red Lake High School has about 300 students, all of whom are Indian.

OTHER INCIDENTS
This isn't the first an Indian teen has been involved in a school shooting incident. On December 6, 1999, Seth Trickey opened fire at the Fort Gibson Middle School in Oklahoma, injuring four students. He was 13 at the time and was convicted of seven assault charges and served
time as a juvenile.